[11 December 1918]

a) Entrust Comrade Nevsky with taking the most urgent measures to increase the freight capacity of the Astrakhan Railway.

b) Entrust Comrade Bryukhanov to present by Sunday* the most accurate possible information on the quantity of grain on the railways and in elevators and, insofar as possible, also at other grain collection points.

c) Entrust Comrade Nevsky with preparing the question of creating groups composed of engineers, railway workers, and workers in general for work on increasing the freight capacity of the railways.

Resolution adopted at a session of the Council of People's Commissars on 11 December 1918 on the basis of Lenin's report (Protocol of the Council of People's Commissars No. 4, Archive I.L. No. 14509).

Notes on grain reserves and on the situation with its shipment were apparently made during a conversation with Verlsky, the plenipotentiary of the Northern Railways. According to Lenin's notation "today to the Council of Defense," N.L. Bryukhanov on the same day, 25 December 1918, reported at a session of the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense on 41/2 million poods of grain in Samara Province; on the basis of the report, the resolution printed below was adopted. The notes are being printed—